


The World's Greatest Adventurer

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Fantasy AU, The rest of μ's is also there but not much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22432291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: In another world, Nico isn't an idol. She's an adventurer, one of the men and women who risk their lives fighting monsters. But she's not just any adventurer.
Relationships: Toujou Nozomi/Yazawa Nico
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	The World's Greatest Adventurer

“Are you _crazy_?”

Nozomi sighed as she heard an angry voice piercing across the room. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in the Adventurers Guild Hall. Nozomi found selling her services as a tarot caster easiest with adventurers, so she spent enough time in the hall that she’d started to have an ear for them, and this one sounded like the kind of argument that wasn’t going to end well.

“We only just barely managed that last mission, and now you want to take one that’s just as hard tomorrow?! Are you trying to get us all killed?”

Almost reluctantly, Nozomi turned to watch the argument, if only so she knew when to duck if it got violent.

By the quest board, there was a group of three who seemed to be the source of the commotion. The speaker seemed to have been a girl in dark blue robe, who was pointing accusingly at a shorter girl in light armour with a knife sheath on the back of her belt. A man with a sword and shield stood behind the robed girl with his arms crossed.

“I’m not trying to get us killed, I’m trying to make us more powerful!” the girl with the knife said heatedly. “Everyone knows the best way to get stronger is to take quests that are challenging to complete!”

“Everyone knows you can _also_ level up by taking quests that are just a little bit above your current ranking, which is still _safe_!” the one with the robes shot back.

“That takes _years_ to go up even one rank!” The girl with the knife’s fists were clenched now. Bad sign.

“Who cares?! We’re still newbie adventurers! We can survive on E rank quests easily. What are you in such a hurry for?”

“Survive?” the knife girl asked incredulously, making a sweeping gesture at the top of the board. “Have you forgotten the point of adventuring?! What about _defeating the demon king_?”

There was a sudden hush in the area around the argument.

The robed girl laughed. “Come on,” she said. “We’re just adventurers from a small town. No one who isn’t a from a hero bloodline and trained by royal knights is _really_ trying to defeat the demon king.”

“Well I am!” the girl with the knife said.

The robed girl’s eyes widened. “You really are crazy,” she said. “Fine then.” She took off some kind of badge and threw it to the girl with the knife, who caught it after a little fumbling. “If you want to kill yourself trying to beat the demon king, you can do it without me!” She turned on her heel and started to walk out.

“What about you, Gustav?” the girl with the knife said, turning to the man with the sword and shield and looking up at him pleadingly. “You’re with me, right?”

The man shook his head. “I’m just in this to feed my family, Nico,” he said, unpinning a similar badge and gently setting it down into the girl with the knife’s hands. “I’m not interested in dying.”

He turned and walked away after the robed girl.

“Fine!” the girl with the knife- Nico, apparently- screamed after them. “Run away then! Go spend your whole time trying to fight the symptoms and ignoring the cause! I don’t need you anyway!”

Nozomi shook her head. It was an ugly way for a party to break up, in the middle of the hall like that. At least it hadn’t come to blows, but… she didn’t like Nico’s chances of finding a new party.

Over the next few weeks, her suspicion proved itself true. Rumors spread like a wildfire about a crazy thief who wanted to take down the demon king. Nozomi watched from afar as Nico’s attempts to recruit new members fell on dead ears. Week after week, month after month, she failed to recruit any new members, until finally, she stopped trying.

The life of a solo adventurer was a hard one. Not only was it far riskier, especially for people who weren’t holy magic warriors who could both stand up to monsters in a direct fight and heal themselves, but it didn’t pay very well either. Sure, you didn’t have split the rewards with anyone else, but four adventurers could easily take a quest that paid out more than four times as much as a quest any of them could do solo. Most people who couldn’t find parties simply retired from adventuring, or did safe jobs as a side occupation. But Nico didn’t. She continued to take quests that were life threatening, day after day, and kept coming back. Not always victorious, and often badly wounded, but always alive. Nozomi gave her a discount whenever Nico came to her for magic. “Anything for my best customer,” she said, winking. “Consider it a bulk discount, Niccochi.”

It wasn’t because of bulk, and both of them knew it. But Nico played along. And Nozomi supported her in that small way.

* * *

It was years after that argument in the guildhall that Nozomi met Honoka.

She seemed extremely average at first. A girl with a broadsword, flanked by an archer and a woman in holy robes who was probably a healer. It was a classic party composition. She took out her cards and smiled at the swordswoman, who was clearly the leader.

“Hello there, what can I do for you today?” she said.

Suddenly, the swordswoman bowed deeply. “Please join my party!”

Nozomi blinked in surprise.

It wasn’t a completely unheard of request. Tarot magicians like her were usually support, but her magic wasn’t so slow that she couldn’t be helpful in a fight, and having access to her services between battles in a dungeon could be helpful. But it was extremely rare for any party to bother to protect a tarot magician when they could have a normal healer and a normal mage instead.

“I’m sorry,” Nozomi said. “I’m not really an adventurer…”

“Please!” the girl said, bowing even deeper, to the point where it looked like she might topple over forwards. “We really need you!”

“Why?” Nozomi asked. “None of the dungeons around here are so long that you really need a tarot magician, are they?”

“The demon king’s castle is!”

Nozomi raised her eyebrows.

“...I’m sorry about her,” the archer said. “Honoka, you’re being unreasonable. Kotori can heal us, right?”

“Kotori can’t keep up with keeping us healed for the entire castle, Umi!” Honoka replied, straightening up and turning to the archer. “I told you! I’ve been researching this, and we need a tarot magician.”

“But that doesn’t mean it has to be Miss Nozomi…” the healer, presumably Kotori, said.”It she doesn’t want to join us…”

Nozomi pondered for a moment, and then an idea came to her.

“I’ll join you on one condition,” she said.

Honoka’s eyes lit up and clasped her hands together. “What is it?!” she asked eagerly.

Nozomi smiled. “How do you feel about bringing along an assassin?”

* * *

“You doing alright there, Niccochi?”

Nico glanced up at Nozomi and shrugged nonchalantly, trying to hide how she winced at even that small a movement.

“It’s just a scratch,” she said. “Something like this isn’t enough to kill the great assassin Nico.”

“I see,” Nozomi said, sitting down next to Nico and laying out her cards. “How about I help you out anyway?”

“Hmph. You just want to make a quick buck,” Nico said, crossing her arms.

“Oh my,” Nozomi said, a hint of a smile tugging at her cheek. “You caught me.”

“Well, fine,” Nico said airily. “I guess I could let you patch me up.”

“Thank you for choosing Nozomi’s tarot services,” Nozomi said, drawing a card and smiling as the barely concealed pain on Nico’s face began to ease. “I’ll put it on your tab. Minus your discount, of course.”

There was a silence for a moment, and then Nico spoke up.

“Why do you really give me a discount?”

It was something she’d never asked, in all their years of doing business. She’d always just accepted it.

_Because I wanted to help you. Because I was too cowardly to do anything else. Because…_

“Because I wanted to make sure you always came back,” Nozomi said softly.

“...So in the end, it really just was an investment?” Nico sighed and slumped back against the wall she was leaning against.

“Maybe,” Nozomi said. “And maybe not.”

“Eh?” Nico perked up, looking intently at Nozomi. “What’s _that_ mean?”

“Oh, look at the time,” Nozomi said, scooping up her cards. “Gotta run, Niccochi. Other people to heal.”

“Hey! Get back here!” Nico called after her, and Nozomi scuttled off to tend to the other members of the party, fighting the blush rising in her cheeks.

* * *

Nico was a little ways away from the camp they’d set up, sitting in one of the empty window frames that dotted the half-ruined castle that the demon king called home and staring out at the moon.

As Nozomi approached, Nico glanced over at her, and then turned her gaze back outside the window.

“Not going to join the others?” Nozomi asked, glancing back at the rest of the group, who were engaged in a rather spirited game of cards.

“Maybe later,” Nico said, not turning around.

“Is something wrong?” Nozomi asked.

Nico didn’t answer for a while. When she spoke again, her voice had a far away quality to it.

“I have some living family, you know,” she said. “My mother works as a waitress in a tavern. And I have two younger sisters, and a younger brother.”

“I never knew,” Nozomi said, a little surprised. Nico had always seemed like such a lone wolf, hearing that she had family was… strange.

“Mama works hard,” Nico continued. “But being a waitress isn’t enough to support five people. Not really.”

“Is that why you started adventuring?” Nozomi asked.

“No,” Nico said. “That’s why I started doing odd jobs. Things around the neighbourhood, you know. Fixing stuff. Cleaning. Gardening. Stuff a kid could do, that earned a few extra copper pieces here and there. It didn’t really make that much of a difference, but I felt like I was helping.”

Nozomi stayed quiet, letting Nico talk.

“But then, my sister Cocoro almost got killed by a monster,” Nico said.

Nozomi gasped.

“She was playing out by the forest,” Nico said. “And a mutant wolf went after her. Thankfully, an adventurer was near by, and managed to save her, but she was too terrified to go outside for days. That was when I decided I wanted to kill the demon king. So that no one would have to cower inside, too afraid to leave their house because there were monsters out there.”

“I see,” Nozomi said.

“But…” Nico said, playing with a pebble next to her. “I think… part of me gave up a long time ago. Figured I’d be struggling on my own forever. So I started to tell myself that at least I was helping to support my family. That I hadn’t completely failed.”

She laughed, a shaky thing that sounded almost more afraid than amused. “But here we are. Right on his doorstep. And tomorrow we’re gonna fight him.”

She glanced over at Nozomi. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Nozomi asked innocently.

“Honoka told me,” Nico said. “That you joined on the condition that they took me too.”

Nozomi sighed. “I believe I told her to keep that a secret…” she said, pouting a little.

Nico snorted. “Come on, since when could Honoka keep a secret?”

Nozomi chuckled. “I suppose it was inevitable that it would come out eventually,” she said.

“Still, I guess I was wrong in more ways than one,” Nico said.

“How so?” Nozomi asked.

Nico looked back out the window again. “I wasn’t alone after all,” she said. “Since I had you.”

Nozomi smiled.

The castle’s design was far outside the scale of a human in a lot of places. The windowsill was close to a dozen feet wide. So when Nozomi climbed up next to Nico and leaned against her, Nico didn’t complain. And while their party yelled and cheered over cards, the two of them sat together, looking out at the night sky.

* * *

“No!” The demon king’s roar was powerful enough to shake the rafters of the castle. “This is… impossible! I can’t be defeated by… a bunch of half rate mortals…!”

“Who the hell is half rate?” Nico said, as she weaved between spears of lightning raining down on her, her movements so fast she looked like she was sliding from place to place. Kotori’s barrier was keeping the rest of them safe, but Nico was advancing ever closer, into the rain of projectiles. Rin and Hanayo, meanwhile, were keeping the other monsters at bay, their constant storm of magic and shurikens drawing the hoard away from the others as they circled the arena.

“Nozomi! Now!” Honoka yelled, as she stepped forward and swung her blade with all her might, expending all of her magic to send out an arc of force, disrupting the barrage of spears. Nozomi nodded, and drew her last card, aiming her magic at Nico. “Nico! Go!”

“I’ll have you know,” Nico said, as she leapt over the wave of fire the demon king fired at her, brandishing her now glowing daggers. “That we’re not just any adventurers!”

“We are...!” Umi cried, firing a barrage of arrows that intercepted the blast of rock that the demon king flung up at Nico.

“...the ones…!” Maki called, raising her sword and calling forth a pillar of light that banished the shield of darkness around the demon king.

“...who are going...!” Eli called, throwing out a blast of ice that staggered the demon king for one precious instant.

“...to defeat you!” Nico finished triumphantly, driving her daggers into the demon king’s skull.

There was a pause. It seemed like in that moment, the whole world was holding its breath. And then the demon king gave one last, terrible roar, and collapsed to the ground, shaking the floor as the stone cracked beneath him.

“We did it!” Honoka cheered, as the other monsters started to flee.

Nozomi, though, only had eyes for Nico, who’d toppled off as the demon king fell and crashed onto his throne.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she rushed over to the pile of debris.

“Nico?!”

An arm emerged from the wreckage, and then Nico struggled her way out of the debris, panting.

“Nico!” Nozomi tackled her, knocking her back down to the ground, sending her daggers skittering across the floor.

“Hey!” Nico said, but before she could say anything else, Nozomi was kissing her while tears streamed down her cheeks, relieved and ecstatic and overwhelmed, and Nico was kissing her back, and everything was finally right in the world.

* * *

Of course, the world wasn’t fixed overnight. The demon king was defeated, but the other monsters still remained. It would take years to finish hunting them down, and in that time, a new general might rise and start producing monsters. But the death of the demon king slowed the production of new monsters to a crawl, and represented a turning point. Within one lifetime, the age of monsters might come to an end. But for now, they were heroes.

And when Nico returned to her family, victorious, she had another announcement besides the death of the demon king.

“Mama, Cocoro, Cocoa, Cotaro, this is my girlfriend, Nozomi.”


End file.
